I’m at a bit of a crossroads with iamwhaleshark. I started this blog to get the things out of my head. Hence the name of the blog section: Emotional Maintenance. But I’m finding I’m not using as emotional maintenance. Even though you are all invisible to me, I find myself unable to share everything. It’s still a bit too naked, too exposed. Besides, who wants to read about the whispers of panic that can stop my heart over their breakfast or on a break from work? It’s funny that I say that because I met Husband online. He was just one picture, a mop topped Paul McCartney look-a-like, to me for months. And I was me as a twenty year old me, in a somewhat blurry picture, laughing because I thought the world ahead was bright and shiny. I was able to share with him all my deep dark secrets behind the safety of the screen. Of course, I kept the good ones; the ones that might make him run screaming, till later. Till we were in love and married and he couldn’t get away. He didn’t find out that I was manic when on caffeine, that I litter partially used tissues about the house, that I don’t put shoes in their correct place until years after we wed. Much like this blog, I only really told him the funny awkward stuff online. The stuff that is so absurd, it couldn’t have happened to someone, let alone me. The stuff like falling off the stage while flirting with boys and landing on a chair with my face causing concussion number three. Husband only told me his awkward funny stuff too. And boy did some of his stories top mine in humor and in shock value. But they are his stories, not mine to share here. Which is too bad because how I found out his second fiancé married a murderer is a fantastic story in itself... But I digress. Again. Husband and I have been married almost nine years now and I think most of our skeletons are out of our heads and bouncing about our lives with us. They've become funny stories to share with friends or punch lines to our arguments. Except the ones too dark to talk about at all. The ones that go bump in the night, we’ve kept to ourselves or only spoken about once or twice and then pushed back down into our darkness. But do I share everything with you? Can I share everything with you? The idea when I started this was yes; yes I do share with you all the icky things that are in me. The scary things that make me squeal. The pure moments of terror when the depression has hold of me and I’m not sure I will be able to get out of the gloom. But that’s not light reading. There isn’t much funny about wondering if I’ll make it through a day, if my breathing will stop and my body will just cease to function, if this shaky calm will last a few days longer and the claustrophobia will fade. That’s not the person most of you have seen. That most of you have known. That, in all honesty, is the movie I’d likely change the channel on. So, I’m at a crossroads. I know it’s an answer that has to come from within me. I know it’s one that I may not be able to make right now. But if I choose not to go down the dark path with my sharing I cannot truly call the blog section Emotional Maintenance... But not sure how long I can keep up with Funny Things That Have Happened To Me or Keep Happening To Me...

I leave you with this picture from the exit to the Stanford Hospital's Psych ward. I feel I should point out, I was not a patient. It is a doozy of a story - Jesus features heavily - that I cannot share here because it's not mine to tell. The picture does really say it all.